


Chord Change

by Ink



Category: Glee
Genre: M/M
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2013-12-25
Updated: 2013-12-25
Packaged: 2018-01-06 01:57:43
Rating: Teen And Up Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 2,176
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/1101047
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Ink/pseuds/Ink
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>Kurt pulls his knees up to his chest and stares at <i>Blaine Anderson</i> (the photo is blank; he'd deleted it after the breakup) illuminated on the phone screen.</p>
<p>Blaine's voice shifts and sharpens. "Kurt? Hey, Kurt, are you there?"</p>
<p>He hunches forward. "You cheated on me," he says.</p>
<p>Silence.</p>
            </blockquote>





	Chord Change

It's been nice, having a (maybe-kind-of-not- _really_ ) boyfriend again. He'd forgotten. He doesn't need a grand romance, not really, but there's something about knowing, just being certain of someone else in the world who will hold doors open for you with a generous sweep of the arm, will lace their fingers through yours in a theater or under a restaurant table, will kiss you on street corners just because you ask. ("You know," he'd said wistfully, "I used to swear to myself that I'd come here, and I'd get a boyfriend, find a boy who really liked me, and when I had him I'd kiss him on every street corner just because I could—") Adam is warm, with a smile that crinkles the corners of his eyes, and he speaks animatedly. When he gets excited, he gestures with his whole body.

Today he's been dragged out to some back-alley craft show, one of the little places Adam so loves. ("No, really, you've got to give it a try, Kurt—you'd be astounded at some of the things you can find in these places—") Kurt flips through vintage postcards and lets Adam tug a series of hats, one after another, down over his ears, posing dutifully in the mirror for each one. When Adam leans down to whip the last one off, he kisses the corner of Kurt's ear where it meets his hair; Kurt beams up at him, knowing that Adam is already smiling back. He knows how to do this. This is easy.

He loops a string of eco-friendly beads around Adam's neck. Adam grabs a hand-carved wooden centipede, elaborately painted, and begins to walk it up Kurt's trailing hand—Kurt laughs, pulling it away, and bats lightly at Adam's arm—

—he sees something, then, out of the corner of his eye. "Oh, wow," he murmurs, and he's already turning there, reaching out to cup the little figurine in both hands.

"A fan of those?" Adam's tone is fond. Kurt's gaze flickers briefly over to him and back again. He runs a finger absently down the side of the figurine, the elaborate, colorful patterns woven into the glass.

"Oh, not really," he says, ducking his head sheepishly. "They were always more of Blaine's thing, really—he was obsessed with them, he always went on and on about the craftsmanship, and he'd get this look on his face—"

He stops.

Adam's hands are poised over the counter, the wrists tensed: poised like piano player's hands, about to crash down onto the keyboard. But he laughs like nothing is amiss at all. "Oh, really?" The crinkle, the grin, the tilt of the head, all flawlessly light. "Should I be jealous?"

He sounds teasing. He looks, perfectly, like someone teasing. Kurt smiles back, pulls his hand away from the figurine (the impression of fingers along the curve of his wrist, curling in the slightest fraction; the bump of a fleece-covered shoulder—) to smooth down the corner of Adam's lapel. "Don't be silly," he says. "Who is it I'm here with now, again?"

Without breaking his smile, Adam steps backward. "Quite right," he says, and then: "Shall I get you a drink? It's quite cold out here."

Kurt lets his hand drop to his side. "Yeah." He resists the urge to look away. "That sounds nice. Thanks."

In a second, Adam has disappeared into the crowd. Kurt breathes in and out, waiting for the image to fade. 

(Blaine would be bouncing on the balls of his feet, his face lit up with excitement—"no, really, Kurt, the craftsmanship—look at this, it's subtle but you can see—" When he reached to tug at Kurt's hand he would grab at Kurt's fingers haphazardly, as though the goal was the only thing in his mind, but when Kurt stepped forward and laced their fingers together he would squeeze like he never wanted to let go.

When he looked back at Kurt his expression would be hopeful and perfectly transparent—he could get this _look_ that made you think you could see all the way down him, every layer; like he wanted you to be able to understand just by glancing at his face—)

It doesn't, so he ducks his head and turns to follow Adam, putting the stall behind him.

 

*

 

In the background he can hear shower water slapping the tiles, two women shouting over one another in Spanish—Santana's telenovelas again, he thinks. Kurt paces the length of his curtained domain, turns on his heel, and paces back. His fingers are drumming an uneven rhythm against the side of his thigh. 

Outside, the traffic light on the corner changes from green to red. 

Blaine sounds lazy, sleep-fogged, when he answers the phone on the third ring. "Hey." He yawns: easy, relaxed. "You're calling late. It's not because there's something wrong, is it?"

Kurt pulls his knees up to his chest and stares at _Blaine Anderson_ (the photo is blank; he'd deleted it after the breakup) illuminated on the phone screen.

Blaine's voice shifts and sharpens. "Kurt? Hey, Kurt, are you there?"

He hunches forward. "You cheated on me," he says.

Silence.

There's a rustle of fabric. (He imagines Blaine sitting up in bed, pushing himself up onto his elbows, still rubbing at his eyes.) "I—yeah? Yeah, that's," more shifting, "that's—definitely a thing that happened—Kurt, what are you—"

He doesn't wait for Blaine to finish fumbling. "Explain yourself."

He can hear Blaine's sharp, staticky intake of breath. "Not that I think you don't deserve it," he says slowly, after a _long_ pause, "but if I remember correctly, you told me—multiple times—that you didn't want to know."

"I didn't want to hear your excuses," he snaps, fingers clenching around the sides of the phone.

"It's not like—" Blaine breaks off, whatever he was going to say—lets out a shaky breath. "And you do now?"

He closes his eyes. "Tell me."

In the background he hears a siren go by; the sound of the blender, whirring.

Blaine is quiet, not at all confessional; he has this habit of rushing through stories he doesn't want to tell, but now he speaks slowly, as though feeling the shape of each word in his mouth. "I don't know if you remember," he starts, "but there was a while—right after you left for New York, when you got the job at Vogue—you were really busy."

"I was _working_ —"

"Will you let me finish?" Blaine bites out, and then, more calmly— "I'm not—trying to make excuses," he says, breathing deep. "Like I said, you were—always busy. And then when you were around, and we could talk, you were so excited about your new job, your new life—you had so many things to say, I could barely get a word in edgewise." He makes this noise, the ghost of a laugh, affectionate and pained and nervous all in one, and Kurt's stomach twists up— "—No, whatever you're going to say," Blaine cuts in, "I—there's still more."

Kurt casts his gaze down at the phone with a certain amount of scorn, and waits.

"—you seemed so far away," Blaine continues, sounding far away himself. "Sometimes I got—so stupidly resentful and angry, just thinking about how you didn't just _know_ , how lonely I was, how much I wanted you to listen to me. But then I thought, _well, of course._ You had so much going on, so many amazing things happening—I thought, everything I wanted to talk about must seem so small and petty next to that. Like maybe it was a sign, that I should just let go and—stop hanging on so hard to you—"

He wants to be sick. He wants to spit at Blaine. "What, so you just _decided_ —on your own—that we were already over, and that made it okay for you to—to—"

He can't say it. He can't.

Blaine laughs into the phone, high and shaken. "I was— _scared_." He says the word like it's a curse. "I thought so much about how scared I was that you would leave, and of—of being there for it, having to watch you drift further and further away and not being able to stop it. I thought about being scared, and I didn't—" a shuddering gasp, and he can tell by the cadence of Blaine's breaths that he is crying— "—not—not once did I think about how much it would hurt you. I think I convinced myself it wouldn't matter."

His chest hurts. _Turn it off_ , he thinks, _turn it off, turn it off,_ but he's paralyzed: his hand around the phone won't open.

"It didn't really hit me until after. That it was real, that it was—a real thing that happened, and—somehow it didn't feel like I'd really be here, like nothing would go on, after. Except then it did. And I'd—I'd really done it. I'd cheated on you." He laughs again. "I took the next flight to New York . . . you know the rest."

Somewhere, Kurt finds his voice. "What," and no, he is not doing this, _he is not going to cry_ , "am I supposed to feel _sorry_ for you? Do you—" _where is his voice_ , "—do you seriously think I should _care?_ "

"No." Blaine's voice is raw, strung out, but he sounds calm again. "I was stupid, and selfish, and—and cowardly, and I hurt you, and there's no reason you should care about my excuses, or any of the things I felt."

All he can hear is his own breathing; it drowns out everything else in the room. "Is that all you have to say for yourself?"

"Yeah," Blaine says, almost gently. "That's all."

Somewhere, hundreds of miles away, Blaine is sitting up in bed. He won't be pressed back against the headboard like Kurt is, trapped by the heaviness of his own limbs: he'll be sitting up straight, and his shoulders will be hunched as he peers over his phone, which he cradles like a precious object. Blaine gets snotty when he cries, and he has the disgusting habit of wiping it off on his sleeve. He tends to cover his face with his hand or his arm, as if he thinks no one will be able to guess what he's hiding. He can be reflexively self-righteous, quick to justify, but he is as impossibly hard on himself, as meticulous a cartographer of his own failings, as anyone Kurt has ever met.

Kurt has seen Blaine's face at its most unflinchingly bleak ( _I ran, Kurt. I let bullies chase me away, and I really, really regret that—_ ), the face of a boy who has measured and weighed and found himself utterly inadequate. And he knows exactly, down to the millimeter, what expression Blaine is wearing now.

_Oh,_ he thinks dully. _There you are_.

The hiss of the shower pipes has stopped; he hears Rachel and Santana shouting over one another, something about Rachel's water habits. "Hey," Blaine says again, and the nervousness has crept back into his voice. "Kurt? Are you—are you there?"

He knows what Blaine had meant: about not feeling like things are real, not believing you'd have to live through them, after. "I've still been—really mad at you. I know I said I wasn't anymore, but I was."

"I guessed," so, so, so soft, and Kurt's thought so many times that he could wrap himself up in Blaine's voice. "It's okay."

And in a minute, when Kurt hasn't answered, "I'll, um. I'll call you tomorrow, if you want? You do—still want to talk, right—I mean, it's okay if you don't—"

"I do." It comes out too small, too soft. "I—yeah. And I'll, you know I'm coming back to Lima soon, so—I'll probably see you then, too. Or—I will." He swallows. "—night, Blaine."

"Kurt—" If he closes his eyes, he can see it: Blaine leaning forward, his fingers closed around his phone, the imploring look on his face. The way he whispers, _I love you so much_ , both reverent and pained, as though the words are being forced out of him.

Kurt waits.

It never comes.

He taps his phone to end the call, and then he's alone, in this cramped, curtained alcove, and the apartment might as well be silent.

 

*

 

The next morning he wakes up two hours too soon, the light streaming through the gap in the curtains still faintly pink, to a text from Adam, the inveterate early bird.

_Hey!_  
 _Found this cool-looking Vietnamese place not too far from campus—what do you say we go and check it out? Friday? :)_

He closes his eyes.

_i can't friday,_ he types, after a pause. _really busy right now—fashion week prep, dance evals, you know._

The response comes in short order, as though the person on the other end of the line isn't really surprised. _Maybe some other time, then._

_Yeah. Maybe._

He finds that he is suddenly quite wide awake.

**Works inspired by this one:**

  * [A Circular Staircase (the prenups remix)](https://archiveofourown.org/works/1321186) by [bravebeetle (signalbeam)](https://archiveofourown.org/users/signalbeam/pseuds/bravebeetle)




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